Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/3215
Date of Award
12-2025
Degree Name
MS in Nutrition
Department/Program
Food Science and Nutrition
College
College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences
Advisor
Kari Pilolla
Advisor Department
Food Science and Nutrition
Advisor College
College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences
Abstract
Nutrition and sleep create a dynamic relationship that is highly important when considering performance and recovery. Health coaching has been effective in several contexts but has not been thoroughly investigated in college athletes. This present thesis examines the impacts of one-on-one health coaching sessions on nutrition choices, where active college students set weekly nutrition and sleep goals aimed to improve their nutrition choices. The six-week long intervention involving active college students, consisted of two groups: an intervention group (n=7) and a control group (n=6). Both groups received an initial coaching session and guidance for self-motivated online goal setting and completed weekly check-ins, including questions that asked about their nutrition and sleep quality and quantity, and perceived performance. Then, they would set SMART goals aimed to improve their nutrition and sleep. The control group set goals on their own each week with their online weekly check-ins, and the intervention group received coaching sessions using motivational interviewing techniques every other week via phone by a researcher. During the initial session, all participants completed metabolic testing, received education on goal setting, and set their week one goals with a researcher. The results showed that over the six-week period, there was no significant difference in mean change from the four pre-post 32-item Athlete Food Questionnaire (AFCQ) constructs analyzed: nutritional attributes of the food, performance, food and health awareness, and emotional influences between the intervention and control group, indicating no significant difference in nutrition choices. Although the results were not significant, goal setting with one-on-one coaching appeared to foster more self-reported motivation and adherence in intervention participants and should be a tool that is further investigated in a collegiate athlete population.